18th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
Images of the 21st Century
11-20 March 2016
PRESS CONFERENCE
Finish Line / True Blue
«Morning Neighbor!» /Guardians of the Aegean
Images of the 21st Century
11-20 March 2016
PRESS CONFERENCE
Finish Line / True Blue
«Morning Neighbor!» /Guardians of the Aegean
As part of the 18th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, directors Eliana Abravanel (Finish Line), Haris Raftogiannis (True Blue), Tania Chatzigeorgiou («Morning Neighbor!») and Omiros Evangelinos (Guardians of the Aegean) attended a press conference on Saturday March 12th, 2016.
Finish Line by Eliana Abravanel follows the lives of three aged marathon runners that are in no hurry to cross the finish line. A long distance runner herself, the director's first involvement with sports came at the age of fifty. It is in these games that she met her protagonists. “What attracted my attention was that they were at the antipode of the typical runner who is dressed in modern athletic outfits. I wanted to see what was hidden behind. Watching them for 4 years, I saw they have made a serious step forwards. They think of running as the vehicle that made them come out of their microcosm” Mrs. Abravanel mentioned. “The film is not a sports documentary but rather a record of the lives of these ‘evergreen adolescents’, as she characterized them. “All three of them exceed incredible obstacles – also due to the crisis - in order to take part in the games. Us runners over 60 are a neglected group by the media. We go slower than the rest but what we do is for us something more than plain running. It's not only about physical uplift, but psychological as well", she pointed out.
True Blue by Haris Raftogiannis focuses on an over-aged couple that enjoys its life in the island of Ikaria. “In 2011, the island became worldwide known as one the so-called five “blue zones”, which are the regions with the greatest longevity percentage on the planet. Greek and foreign news networks covered the subject widely and this gave the idea for the documentary to my co-producer. Eventually, this aged couple was chosen as the film’s protagonists because they were very robust and active, but also because there was love in their life”, the director explained. And he added: “The documentary is like a love story from another era, or a classic fairy tale. Crisis may exist in the background, through an open radio or a television, the couple may get moody for a moment, however Stamatis and the ‘’girly’’, as he calls his spouse, get over it and go on with a lighter conversation and in good humor”.
An old but very bold woman is the protagonist in Tania Chatzigeorgiou's «Morning Neighbor!». It's Rinio, who decided to leave Australia, as she gave her word to her father that she would never abandon Kinaros, the island she was born. What moved the filmmaker was the fact that Rinio gave her word and kept it, foregoing her easy life and house in Australia, in order to return to her birth place, the home of her grandfathers. In the course of the documentary's making, which lasted eight years, Rinio's spouse, Mikes, died and her son, Giorgis, got married in Kalymnos. “Rinio was left alone in the island. She loves everything that moves and exists in Kinaros. It is her home. She has this incredible relationship with her farm animals, 300 sheeps and goats overall. She knows their names and speaks to them. But of course, life in the island is anything but easy. Rinio walks 1 kilometre per day to fill her bottles with water. In the beginning, there were no power or telephone lines and in many occasions communication with the outside world is stopped for many days. However, the love for her place is above all”.
Islanders happen also to be the protagonists in Omiros Evangelinos' Guardians of the Aegean, a film that focuses on the issue of overfishing. The director himself lives in the Aegean for the past 25 years. “I was hearing from the fishermen that fish-stock is decreasing. When I became a father, I was wondering whether my children would ever experience this element of life. During the five years of the documentary's making, the problem of overfishing was becoming apparent not through any data or evidence, but through the picture of the fishermen pulling kilometers of nets from the sea only to find out that they fished 2 - 3 kilos of fish. If you listen to fishermen of medium fishery who trawl tones of fishes, they will tell you that there is no problem with the levels of fish-stock. A state of anarchy exists at sea, especially in the small islands”, the director noted. During the documentary’s shooting, the director was informed about the possible creation of a Marine Protected Area (Marine Park) in Santorini, an initiative led by Pierre-Yves Cousteau. “Such initiatives for the protection of the environment from those immediately involved are very few worldwide. Although there is an agreement with the Greek Centre of Marine Researches, there is no ministerial decision yet that would safeguard the limits of any protected region, in order to prohibit fishing there. We should all put pressure on the issue of overfishing”, he concluded.
